Clinton baseball sweeps Madison in TCC doubleheader

Tuesday

May 7, 2013 at 3:00 PM

By Jay NicolsDaily Telegram Special Writer

The Madison Trojans and the Clinton Redskins played a baseball twinbill on Monday night, making up a postponed game from April 17 that was at Clinton. The Redskins took both games, 8-1 and 2-0, behind two well pitched games by TJ Baker and KC Clegg.

In game one, Clinton’s Baker pitched a complete game six-hitter with 12 strikeouts limiting the Trojans to one run.

Clinton took advantage of two errors in the first inning when Cullen Zimmerman cranked and two RBI single to score Ben Yoder and Baker to make it 2-0. Dylan Spurlock added another RBI on a single to score Brett Tschirhart who reached on walk extending the lead to 3-0.

“Great games,” explained Clinton coach Steve DeGood. “KC and TJ pitched as well as they could pitch. We didn’t give KC the hitting support that TJ got in the first game, but still a great performance from him. His arm wasn’t feeling all that good coming into this game either and he gutted it out and pitched one of his best games as a Redskin.”

Madison got a run back in the fourth inning on an RBI single from Gunner Rainey to score Zach Denig and cut the lead to 4-1. That was all Baker would give up as he struck out six of the next 14 hitters he faced to get the win. Clinton added two runs in the fifth and a run each in the sixth and seventh to close out the Trojans 8-1 in game one.

Madison’s Hunter Teunion-Smith took the loss in game one, but pitched well over four innings striking out four.

“Two plays changed that game a lot,” said Madison coach Chris Dubbs. “Anytime we made a mistake, they jumped on it.”

Clinton’s KC Clegg and Madison’s Nolan Anschuetz pitched a great game two, allowing only two runs on eight hits combined. Clegg got the win thanks to a few pitches that got in the dirt for Anschuetz, which set up the game winning run in the third.

In the third inning, Cody Mulready got a single to reach base and advanced to third on two wild pitches. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Tschirhart to make it 1-0. The Redskins were able to add a run on in the fifth when a ball got away and reached the backstop to score Baker, who reached on single, to make it 2-0.

It could have been a lot worse had it not been for Anschuetz getting out of the second inning after loading the bases with no outs. He got a strikeout and two flyouts to get out of the jam.

“Nolan threw pretty well, got himself out of some jams, defensively we helped him out,” said Dubbs. “Bases loaded, no one out, that could have changed the game. In the third inning, they had bases loaded and they got one. Our fourth inning, we had a guy on third and we didn’t get a fly ball. When they had a guy on third, they got a fly ball. That’s the ball game. Part of that is we are still pretty young and sometimes we have to learn to make plays. Clinton is a good team.”

Madison had its chances, but was not able to get the hit when they needed it. They left four runners in scoring position.

“We know Madison is a quality team right now,” said coach DeGood. “To get in here and get a couple wins, this was huge.”